So this question that, "Is this chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa the answer to living successfully in today's . . .?" What do you mean by "successfully living"? Successfully living does not mean that you work hard just like cats and dogs, and eat something and have sex life at night. That is not successful life. That successful life is there even in the cats and dogs and hogs. The hogs are also laboring very hard. The cats and dogs, they are also for their food. And the sex is there. Everything is there. That is not successful life. Real successful life is how to understand his real constitutional position as part and parcel of the Supreme Lord. That is successful life. This is not successful life.
What is this successful life? I see . . . I have got so many students. They are well qualified. But they have got . . . when they work, they have to work so hard, they go at six o'clock to the working and comes again at six o'clock, all day, tired. They lost all vitality, all sense. Is that successful life, simply for one morsel of food, working so hard? And unless one works so hard, he cannot eat. We have created a civilization that one must earn thousands of dollars, then he can live like a gentleman. Is that successful life? And for earning that thousands of dollars he has to work so hard, just like animal, beast. No. That is not successful life.
Successful life is that, that we should make our bodily necessities of life as far as required, not more than that. I want to eat something. God has given sufficient food. You grow. You live anywhere. You grow foodstuff. You grow grains. You grow fruits. You grow vegetables. Keep cows. Take milk. You can live anywhere. You haven't got to go fifty miles off with a car to attend your office at six o'clock with velocity of hundred miles' speed. Is that successful life, do you think? So where is successful life? We are proposing successful life.
So whatever you do, you just become Kṛṣṇa conscious, and at least he will feel that, "I am . . . my future hope is there. There is Kṛṣṇa." That is successful life. At least he is hopeful that he is going to Kṛṣṇa, even he is working very hard, never mind. "I have been put into this condition of life." So that is successful life. At least one life, anyway, passed on.
Kṛṣṇa gives him assurance that one who understands the philosophy of Kṛṣṇa . . . janma karma me divyaṁ yo jānāti tattvataḥ: anyone who simply understands what is Kṛṣṇa, then his privilege is tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9),
"He does not take any more birth in this material world." Then where does he go? Mām eti: "He comes to Me." Simply try to understand Kṛṣṇa, that's all, even if you don't serve Him. But Kṛṣṇa is so attractive, as soon as you understand Kṛṣṇa, then you have to serve Him. You see? It is so nice.